Virginia Giuffre

Virginia Giuffre (born Virginia Roberts) is the most prominent accuser in the Jeffrey Epstein case. Her willingness to identify herself publicly, file civil lawsuits against powerful individuals, and provide detailed testimony about the trafficking operation made her the single most important witness in bringing the Epstein network to public accountability.

Her defamation lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell — Giuffre v. Maxwell — produced the trove of sealed documents whose gradual unsealing, culminating in January 2024, named dozens of high-profile figures and provided the most detailed account of Epstein’s operation available in any legal proceeding.

Recruitment at Mar-a-Lago

Giuffre has described her recruitment in court filings, depositions, interviews, and testimony. The account has been consistent across years of legal proceedings.

In the summer of 1999 or 2000, when Giuffre was approximately 16 years old, she was working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida. Her father, Sky Roberts, worked there as a maintenance employee.

Ghislaine Maxwell approached Giuffre at the club and struck up a conversation about Giuffre’s interest in becoming a masseuse. Maxwell told Giuffre she knew a wealthy man — Epstein — who was looking for a traveling masseuse and suggested the job could help Giuffre with her career. Giuffre described Maxwell as sophisticated, friendly, and reassuring.

Giuffre went with Maxwell to Epstein’s Palm Beach estate on El Brillo Way. She described the first visit as beginning with a seemingly legitimate massage before Epstein’s behavior escalated into sexual abuse. Maxwell was present during the encounter, Giuffre testified, and played a direct role in normalizing the sexual conduct.

From that point, Giuffre was drawn into the trafficking network. She was paid in cash, traveled on Epstein’s aircraft, and was taken to properties in New York, New Mexico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, London, and Paris over a period of approximately two years.

A partially redacted DOJ memo released under the Epstein Transparency Act confirms that Giuffre told federal investigators about her recruitment at Mar-a-Lago as a teenager, corroborating the account she had given in civil depositions.

What She Alleges Happened

Giuffre’s accounts, given across multiple depositions, court filings, and media interviews, describe being trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell to numerous men. The trafficking followed a pattern: Maxwell or Epstein would direct Giuffre to a specific location where a specific man was waiting. The encounters were sexual in nature. Giuffre was a minor during the relevant period.

Giuffre has named specific individuals in her accounts:

Prince Andrew: Giuffre alleged three sexual encounters with Andrew — in London, New York, and on Little St. James Island — when she was 17. She described being directed to the encounters by Maxwell. A photograph exists of Andrew with his arm around Giuffre at Maxwell’s London residence, with Maxwell standing in the background. Andrew denied the allegations. The civil lawsuit filed in August 2021 was settled in February 2022 for a reported 12 million pounds.

Alan Dershowitz: Giuffre alleged that Epstein and Maxwell directed her to have sexual encounters with Dershowitz. He has vigorously and consistently denied these allegations, calling them fabricated. The two engaged in mutual defamation lawsuits. In 2024, a settlement was reached, and Giuffre’s legal team acknowledged that her allegations against Dershowitz may have been “mistaken.” Dershowitz characterized the settlement as vindication.

Bill Clinton: Giuffre mentioned Clinton in the context of Epstein’s network — confirming she saw him on Epstein’s plane and at Epstein’s properties — but did not accuse Clinton of sexual misconduct. When asked directly in a deposition whether she had sexual contact with Clinton, Giuffre said no.

Other individuals: In depositions and court filings, Giuffre named additional men she says she was directed to have sexual encounters with, including former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (who denied the allegations before his death in 2023), former Senator George Mitchell (who denied the allegations), and others whose identities were revealed in the January 2024 document unsealing.

The Defamation Lawsuit Against Maxwell

In 2015, Giuffre filed a defamation lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell after Maxwell publicly called Giuffre a liar. The case — Giuffre v. Maxwell, filed in the Southern District of New York — became the most significant civil proceeding in the Epstein case.

During discovery, both sides produced thousands of pages of documents, depositions, and exhibits. Maxwell was deposed in 2016 and invoked her Fifth Amendment rights extensively. Giuffre was deposed multiple times and provided detailed testimony about her experiences.

The case was settled in 2017 for undisclosed terms. However, the documents produced during the case were filed under seal — and their gradual unsealing became one of the most consequential legal developments in the Epstein saga.

In 2019, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals began ordering the release of portions of the sealed documents. Additional releases followed, with the largest batch — approximately 900 pages — ordered unsealed by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska and released on January 3, 2024.

The January 2024 Unsealing

The January 2024 document release was a watershed moment. For the first time, names that had been redacted or replaced with pseudonyms in earlier releases were made public. The documents included deposition excerpts, flight logs, correspondence, and testimony that named numerous high-profile individuals in connection with Epstein’s network.

The release confirmed and expanded on Giuffre’s accounts. It also revealed the breadth of Epstein’s social network and the extent to which powerful people had been aware of — or connected to — his activities. The documents named individuals across politics, business, entertainment, science, and royalty.

The unsealing was ordered under a legal standard balancing privacy interests against public interest in the information. Judge Preska concluded that the public interest in understanding the Epstein case outweighed the privacy concerns of the named individuals, most of whom were public figures.

Giuffre’s Statements About Specific Figures

Giuffre’s testimony was notable not only for what she alleged but for the distinctions she drew between different individuals.

She made specific, detailed allegations of sexual abuse against Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz. She described the settings, the circumstances, and Maxwell’s role in facilitating the encounters.

She mentioned Bill Clinton in the context of Epstein’s network — on the plane, at properties — but explicitly denied sexual contact with Clinton under oath. This distinction is significant: Giuffre did not treat all of Epstein’s associates the same way. She accused some of criminal conduct and cleared others.

She did not accuse Donald Trump of sexual misconduct, despite being recruited at Trump’s club, Mar-a-Lago.

These distinctions lend credibility to Giuffre’s accounts: she differentiated between people she saw in Epstein’s orbit and people she says participated in the abuse.

The Settlement with Prince Andrew

The civil lawsuit against Prince Andrew — filed August 9, 2021, under the New York Child Victims Act — alleged that Andrew sexually assaulted Giuffre on three occasions when she was under 18.

Andrew’s legal team fought to dismiss the case on jurisdictional grounds and based on the 2009 settlement agreement between Giuffre and Epstein. Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled in January 2022 that the case could proceed.

The settlement, announced on February 15, 2022, included a reported 12 million pounds paid by Andrew and a donation to Giuffre’s victims’ rights charity. Andrew made no admission of guilt.

The settlement foreclosed the possibility of a trial that would have included Andrew’s deposition under oath — testimony that both the British public and Epstein investigators had been anticipating.

The Recantation Regarding Dershowitz

In 2024, as part of a settlement of the mutual defamation lawsuits between Giuffre and Alan Dershowitz, Giuffre’s attorneys issued a statement acknowledging that her allegations against Dershowitz may have been “mistaken.” The statement said Giuffre now recognized that she “may have made a mistake in identifying” Dershowitz.

Dershowitz called the settlement a complete vindication and noted he had consistently denied the allegations for a decade.

The recantation was significant because it was the first time Giuffre had publicly walked back allegations against any individual she had named. It raised questions about the reliability of specific identifications in her accounts, though her core narrative — recruitment by Maxwell, abuse by Epstein, trafficking to multiple individuals — has been corroborated by other victims’ testimony and by the Maxwell trial verdict.

Advocacy and Public Impact

Giuffre’s impact on the Epstein case extended beyond her own allegations. She became the public face of the survivors’ movement for transparency and accountability. Her willingness to use her real name, sit for interviews, and face legal challenges from wealthy and powerful defendants — including a member of the British royal family — placed sustained public pressure on institutions that might otherwise have allowed the case to fade.

Her lawsuit against Maxwell produced the document trove that named dozens of individuals and exposed the mechanics of Epstein’s operation in unprecedented detail. Without Giuffre v. Maxwell, much of what the public now knows about the Epstein network would remain sealed.

She spoke publicly about the personal toll of her advocacy — the threats, the legal costs, the scrutiny of her own past, and the difficulty of reliving her experiences through years of litigation. She described feeling re-victimized by the legal process while simultaneously using it as the only available tool for accountability.

Death and Memoir

Virginia Giuffre died in April 2025. Her posthumous memoir, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, co-written with Amy Wallace, was published by Alfred A. Knopf on October 21, 2025. The book documents her account of surviving Epstein’s abuse, her recruitment at Mar-a-Lago, the years of trafficking, and her long fight for justice through the courts. It was released per her explicit wishes. The memoir was covered extensively by PBS, NPR, and other outlets, and provided additional detail about her experiences beyond what had been entered into court records.

What Is and Is Not Established

Giuffre’s core account — recruitment by Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago at age 16, trafficking by Epstein and Maxwell to multiple locations and individuals, sexual abuse over a period of approximately two years — has been corroborated by other victims’ testimony, by the Maxwell trial verdict, by flight logs, and by DOJ documents released under the Transparency Act.

Her specific allegations against Prince Andrew were settled without adjudication. Her allegations against Alan Dershowitz were formally walked back in a 2024 settlement. Her accounts regarding other named individuals have not been independently adjudicated.

The January 2024 document unsealing and the subsequent Epstein Transparency Act releases have broadly supported the framework of Giuffre’s accounts while raising questions about specific identifications. Her role in forcing transparency in the Epstein case — through litigation, public testimony, and sheer persistence — is a matter of public record.

Documents

Primary-source records from Virginia Giuffre’s legal actions and testimony. As the central survivor and plaintiff in much of the Epstein litigation, Giuffre is named throughout these records.

• Giuffre v. Maxwell — unsealed court records (Jan. 2024) — Giuffre’s own 2015 defamation suit against Ghislaine Maxwell (U.S. District Court, S.D.N.Y., No. 1:15-cv-07433). The 2024 unsealing of this case — the result of years of litigation by Giuffre, the Miami Herald, and others — produced her depositions and the bulk of the public documentary record on Epstein’s network. Giuffre is named throughout.
• Giuffre v. Prince Andrew — civil complaint (2021) — Giuffre’s August 2021 lawsuit accusing Prince Andrew of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress (S.D.N.Y., No. 1:21-cv-06702), alleging abuse when she was 17. Settled in February 2022 with no admission of liability.
• Epstein flight logs — Pilot manifests for Epstein’s aircraft, released by the DOJ in February 2025, corroborate Giuffre’s accounts of being transported between Epstein’s properties.